Fábio Andrade

Fábio Andrade is a highly regarded Brazilian Jiu Jitsu coach at the Nova Uniao camp, being a prime figure in the revamping of their line-up within the sport in recent years. Mentioned by Protocolo BJJ (one of Facebook’s leading authorities of the Jiu Jitsu) as having “the Midas touch”, due to his consistency in bringing new talent through his social project academy in Bangu (neighborhood in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro), Andrade has produced fighters such as Kaue Damasceno, Isaque Bahiense, Iris Batista and the inevitable Márcio André among many others.

Fabio Andrade Biography

Fabio Andrade was born on the 30th of July, 1975 in Bangu, Rio de Janeiro. For two years Fabio trained Karate at the Saga Academy with coach Ronaldo Araújo. Andrade was 16 when he stopped training. Fast forward 7 years and Fabio starts taking his nephew Diego Luis to the kids Jiu Jitsu classes in their neighborhood. There he met Luis Hermínio Pessoa (the owner of the gym) with whom Fabio became good friends. Luis (also known as Luizinho) used to entice Andrade to put a gi on and train some Jiu Jitsu, but he always refused as wearing a cotton kimono in Bangu’s intense heat seemed unbearable in Fabio’s mind.

One day Fabio Andrade gave in to Luis’ enticing and took a class. The class was given by Sérgio Torres and it was even worst then Fabio had envisioned it. It was hot and intense and he felt very clumsy, something he had never really felt as he had always had knack for sports. This made him want to come back, he wanted to understand the mechanics of the moves.

With his keen attention for detail, Fabio Andrade’s progress in Jiu Jitsu was quick, and always supported by his (now) very good friend, Luis Pessoa, who was also the owner of a kimono brand (KF) and sponsored Andrade in competition and with his training equipment. In fact, the whole Pessoa family took a shine to Fabio and supported him in his Jiu Jitsu life. Due to the distance of Bangu from the center of Rio de Janeiro, and due to the poverty of the area, the gym where Andrade trained for most of his BJJ life had a rotation of coaches, but always supervised by Nova União’s Wendell Alexander and/or Daniel “Jacaré” Almeida. All belts from blue to brown were awarded by Wendel, except the black belt (awarded on December 2007) which was handed by Almeida.

The Nova União Bangu gym had existed since 1998, but in 2005 Daniel Almeida decided to open free classes to the impoverished people of the area, to help him with the task, he invited Fabio Andrade. Soon Fabio took over the kids classes altogether and with his aforementioned keen attention to detail this small project managed developed some of the worlds top athletes, people like: Kaue Damasceno, Isaque Bahiense, Paulo Henrique, Marcio Andre, Iris Batista,Daniel dos Santos, Alessandro Carvalho and many others. In 2006 Luis Pessoa asked Fabio Andrade to stop working and take over the Bangu academy, making it his full time job. Though Andrade was hesitant, Luizinho assured him this was the right move and so Fabio took the helm of the academy.

In 2012 the heavy rains that destroyed large areas of Rio de Janeiro also took away a big portion of Fabio Andrade’s academy’s roof soaking the mats in the process. Fabio and his students tried their hardest to salvage what they could, but still the gym was in bad shape. With very little financial support the team kept training every day on these broken down mats with no roof over their heads. On July 2013 Fabio Andrade told ‘TV Nocaute’ of how Jair Lourenco turned up at the Bangu academy with a friend whom he didn’t know. The 3 men (Fabio, Jair and Jair’s friend) discussed how Jiu Jitsu had grown in the area and of the fantastic team that was being developed there. Then the friend saw the condition of the gym and became dumbfounded at the success the team had had in such 3rd world training conditions. Turned out that Lourenco’s friend was none other than Fabiano Marinho, owner of Prime Sports, one of the biggest gym apparel brands in Brazil. Marinho was so touched by the story that he decided to donate a full refurbishment to the gym in show of support to Andrade’s cause.